Saturday, January 10, 2009

It's been a quick 10 days of the year so far. I put in a bit of time at work. I finally got the title to my car, but now I need a starter. There is supposed to be a snowstorm in NYC this afternoon. And I got the first serious genealogy inquiries into the Essex County Clarke families since 2006 this week.

It seems I am not the only Clarke who has had a newspaper column. I knew my great-great grandfather Edgar A. Clarke's cousin Almon Taylor Clarke wrote a "Meditations" column for the Palm Beach Post in the early part of the 20th Century. But it turns out that Almon's son (also named Almon Taylor Clarke, but better know to the upstate NY literary community by his pen name of Rufus) was a major columnist. He was well known for the "Old Timer's Column" that was syndicated in several upstate Newspapers, including the Tupper Lake Free Press. But despite what it says in several upstate New York obituaries, these Clarkes did not have an ancestor who signed the Declaration of Independence. Their ancestor (and mine) who lived around that time was Abraham Clarke (1736-1817), who spent his first 50+ years in Middlesex County, MA (and served in the Continental Army around 1782). After his wife's death, Abraham started what would be the first of 218 years of Clarke migration- to Sullivan County, NH, Springfield, VT, and to Essex County, NY. His grandson James Madison Clarke's bible is what definitively connected Almon Taylor Clarke to my ancestors, most of whom were not prominent, certainly not prominent enough to go to Philadelphia in 1776.

As far as I know, while I have sent submissions to the (recently deceased) New York Sun and to a few websites, the only newspaper which has printed any of my writings regularly was the Brooklyn College Excelsior, and I stopped sending stuff to them over 9 years ago.

Also, my friend from Japan-by-way-of-Owensboro, KY, Steve Peak, is in the United States right now. I doubt he will get to New York before his wife's and daughter's travel visas expire. But New York had to deal with Al Qaida in 2001, I don't think it is ready for Al-Boaida now.

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About Me

I am an electronic music producer, blogger, writer, commentator, photographer, and an amateur video producer. I have videos on Youtube and 70+ original tracks on HearThis.At and on Soundcloud, as well as a mp3 album/single sales page on Bandcamp and 4 submissions on Indaba Music. My most liked music tracks on Soundcloud are my first original house song, "Up" and a house tune I released at the start of 2014 called "Frustration". 2 of my most liked videos were both shot in May 2013, the first time I stayed in Austin, TX- a video of President Obama's motorcade taken from outside the shelter I was staying at (which was also the first video I ever took on an Android phone), and a film project about Downtown Austin's 6th Street entertainment district. In 2014, I contributed music and other stuff to an Austin-based art/media project about low-income and homeless matters called "Am I Invisible". I recently moved back to Colorado after a disastrous 3 months in NYC , 7 months in Maine, and a 15 month stay in South Texas. I've previously lived in the NYC area from 1996 to 2007, 2008 to 2010, 2011 to 2014, and 2015-16. As of January 2018, I've been on every mile of NYC subway line that is publicly rideable. Currently in Denver, CO, for work purposes.